Model-intent landing page

Best GPU for Kimi Linear 48B hosting

Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct needs at least 48GB on each GPU, so the current budget floor is A40 on RunPod at $0.44/hr.

1x 48GB+ GPU Long-context specialist 49B params 48GB+ per GPU

View cheapest setups Browse all LLMs Plan workload

Cheapest tracked setup

$0.44/hr

RunPod · A40

Monthly floor

$321/mo

Directional spend at today's median price

Qualifying providers

47 tracked setups meet the VRAM floor

Baseline VRAM

48GB

1x 80GB GPU for meaningful long-context headroom

Search guide

Best GPU for Kimi Linear 48B hosting

Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct is a 49B parameter model positioned for long-context, agents, and analysis. This guide turns that requirement into a live cloud price floor.

Start with the cheapest qualifying setup, then compare the higher-headroom rows if you expect larger batches, long prompts, or want more operational margin.

Cheapest provider right now

Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct cheapest tracked setup

The cheapest tracked way to host Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct right now is A40 on RunPod at $0.44/hr. If you want more batching headroom, the highest-memory tracked option is MI300X on RunPod at $2.39/hr.

Methodology and freshness

How this guide is computed

We reuse the same GPU requirement metadata shown in the LLM catalog, filter the live cloud market down to cards that meet the model's per-GPU VRAM floor, and sort the resulting setups by estimated hourly spend.

FAQ

Best GPU for Kimi Linear 48B hosting FAQ

What is the cheapest tracked setup for Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct?

The cheapest tracked way to host Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct right now is A40 on RunPod at $0.44/hr.

How much VRAM do I need for Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct?

Our baseline for Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct is 1x 48GB GPUs, with 1x 80GB GPU for meaningful long-context headroom as the practical setup.

Should I buy more headroom than the cheapest Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct setup?

Usually yes if you care about batching, long prompts, or smoother latency. If you want more batching headroom, the highest-memory tracked option is MI300X on RunPod at $2.39/hr.

How fresh is the pricing on this Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct guide?

We recalculate this page from the latest stored provider snapshot. The freshest qualifying row is from Jul 28, 2026, and collectors run daily.

More GPU workload guides

These follow-up guides target adjacent high-intent searches so buyers can move from a single query into the next pricing question without bouncing back to search.

What to do with this page

Best GPU for Kimi Linear 48B hosting at a glance

Use these recommendation cards to separate the current budget floor from the higher-headroom or broader-catalog alternatives that matter for this decision.

Cheapest live setup

A40 on RunPod

The cheapest tracked way to host Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct right now is A40 on RunPod at $0.44/hr.

Higher-memory alternative

MI300X

If you want more batching headroom, the highest-memory tracked option is MI300X on RunPod at $2.39/hr.

Why teams pick this model

Long-context specialist

The practical Kimi: a 3B-active model designed to keep very long prompts from overwhelming the KV cache. The model card reports up to 75% less KV-cache demand and a 1M-token context, but real 1M serving still needs substantial memory.

Live pricing inputs

Tracked Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Instruct hosting options

These rows all satisfy the model's minimum VRAM envelope using current on-demand pricing.

Updated Jul 28, 2026

GPU / target	Provider	Type	Hourly	Monthly	Why it fits
A40 1x 48GB+ GPU	RunPod Provider site	on-demand	$0.44/hr	$321/mo	Fits the 48GB floor with 48GB GDDR6 memory.
A6000 1x 48GB+ GPU	RunPod Provider site	on-demand	$0.53/hr	$387/mo	Fits the 48GB floor with 48GB GDDR6 memory.
L40 1x 48GB+ GPU	Vast.ai Provider site	on-demand	$0.58/hr	$421/mo	Fits the 48GB floor with 48GB GDDR6 memory.
RTX 6000Ada 1x 48GB+ GPU	Vast.ai Provider site	on-demand	$0.59/hr	$433/mo	Fits the 48GB floor with 48GB GDDR6 memory.
L40 1x 48GB+ GPU	GCP Provider site	on-demand	$0.66/hr	$482/mo	Fits the 48GB floor with 48GB GDDR6 memory.
RTX 6000Ada 1x 48GB+ GPU	Lambda Provider site	on-demand	$0.69/hr	$504/mo	Fits the 48GB floor with 48GB GDDR6 memory.
RTX 6000Ada 1x 48GB+ GPU	RunPod Provider site	on-demand	$0.84/hr	$613/mo	Fits the 48GB floor with 48GB GDDR6 memory.
L40 1x 48GB+ GPU	RunPod Provider site	on-demand	$0.91/hr	$661/mo	Fits the 48GB floor with 48GB GDDR6 memory.

Agent-assisted setup

Hand this runbook to Claude Code or Codex

Open a terminal in the repository where you want the deployment files, start claude or codex, then paste this prompt. It asks the agent to verify sources and stop before it creates billable infrastructure.

Claude Code quickstart ↗ Codex docs ↗

Deployment prompt

Use the infrastructure or model context on this page to create a reproducible open-model deployment. Use this guide as the starting context: https://www.getflops.ai/guides/best-gpu-for-kimi-linear-48b-hosting. Read the linked model card and provider documentation before choosing hardware or runtime settings. Open every linked primary source and flag any mismatch instead of guessing. Create a deployment folder containing README.md, .env.example with no secrets, a pinned start script or infrastructure manifest, and smoke-test.sh. Make the endpoint OpenAI-compatible where the runtime supports it. Run local/static validation, estimate the billable resources, and stop before provisioning paid infrastructure until I approve.

Guardrails included No secrets in files · verify primary docs · approval before spend